chapter sixteen
Providence Station
Transverse, non-congruent
Isaac stepped out of the unfinished room beneath CHRONO Operations. He tugged the Peacekeeper blues down then adjusted his peaked cap.
“You look good in that,” Susan commented with an approving twinkle in her eyes.
“Don’t get used to it,” he grumbled.
He’d worn a Peacekeeper uniform once before when an investigation led them to the Admin version of Luna. Isaac had found himself somewhat conflicted by the necessity—as if replacing his SysPol uniform, however temporarily, somehow impacted his loyalties—but the DTI mandated all investigators wear their uniforms while on duty. That requirement became a bit fuzzy outside the Admin, given his status as both a SysPol detective and DTI investigator, but all ambiguity vanished within its borders.
In the end, he’d decided a little personal discomfort was a small price to pay to further the case. He’d stick to the rules, whether they came from SysGov or the Admin.
If only he could get his cap to sit right.
“Here.” Susan reached for his head. “Let me help you with that.”
“Please. There’s no need to fuss.”
“I’m not fussing. You’re just wearing it too far back.” She removed his cap. “We have guidelines on how to wear our uniforms.”
“I was trying to emulate how Jonas Shigeki wears his.”
“Well, he’s a director. He can do whatever he wants.” Susan fitted the cap back on his head. “There. Now you look like a proper Peacekeeper.”
“Uh,” Isaac groaned.
“This making you uncomfortable?” she asked, that twinkle still in her eyes.
“I’ll get over it.” He turned to the LENS. “We ready to head out?”
“Yep.” Cephalie materialized atop the drone. “The only restriction I’m under is I can’t transfer off the LENS.” She gave him an exaggerated shrug. “Which I have no intention of doing anyway.”
“Then let’s go.”
They took the central counter-grav shaft down to the hangar access level, then followed the corridor out to Hammerhead-Seven’s dock. They passed through the site of the bombing where microbot construction swarms oozed along the walls.
They reached the Admin hangars, passed through security, and made their way toward the large chronoport’s boarding ramp, where a second security detail verified their identities. The chronoport’s captain, a tall, handsome man who wore his uniform like a second skin, gave the group a polite smile once they were cleared.
“Captain Elifritz,” Isaac extended his hand. “This is a surprise.”
“Hopefully a pleasant one, Investigator.” Jason Elifritz shook his hand then faced Susan. “Agent.”
“Good to see you again, Captain.”
“Hammerhead-Seven is your ship now?” Isaac asked.
“That’s right,” Elifritz replied, “though I have to say the transfer off Defender-Prime took me by surprise. I was trying to weasel my way into the IC pilot when the higher-ups broke the news to me.”
“The IC pilot? You mean the same program Jonas Shigeki is a part of?”
“That’s right. I don’t get nearly as worked up about AIs as some of my colleagues do, and the idea sounded both intriguing and helpful to me.” Elifritz grinned. “But, alas, it seems I’ll have to settle for command of one of the most powerful chronoports ever built. What a shame.”
“The new command is working out for you?”
“Oh, absolutely! Even managed to drag some of my old bridge crew along for the ride. And what a ride! This new class puts the old Pioneers to shame in just about every metric. The Hammerheads are just as fast but with a ton more firepower and survivability. You’ll be safe in our hands, even if this Institute shows its ugly hide.”
“Hopefully that won’t be necessary,” Isaac said. “Congratulations, by the way.”
“Thank you, Investigator.”
“How’s the ship been handling the storm?”
“About as well as can be expected. Have you had anything to eat recently?”
“No. Been too busy.”
Elifritz gave him a sympathetic nod. “Then I think you’ll be fine.”
“By the way, how’s your wife doing? Michelle, was it?”
“She’s well, though it’s been a few weeks since we spoke face-to-face. She’s visiting with her family back on Mars.”
“When do you expect her back?” Susan asked conversationally.
“No time soon.” Elifritz flashed a wry grin. “All these attacks are making a lot of people nervous, her included. I miss her, of course, but I also sleep better knowing she’s safe.” He stepped aside and gestured up the ramp. “Anyway, we’ll head out as soon as you’re settled in.”
* * *
Hammerhead-Seven phased into realspace high above the Prime Campus, located within the heart of the Yanluo Blight.
The administrative city sprawled out beneath the chronoport in an organized grid of monolithic towers surrounded by desolate wastelands that still bore centuries-old scars from when Yanluo had ravaged mainland China. The site of the worst massacre in human history—in this universe, at least—had been transformed into the Admin’s seat of power, and Prime Tower, the largest structure by far, loomed over the landscape. The gargantuan edifice stretched three times higher than its tallest neighbor and ten times greater than DTI headquarters, itself located near the campus outskirts.
Hammerhead-Seven’s telegraph operator, whose responsibilities also included realspace communications, established a secure connection between the ship and the DTI tower. A virtual torrent of data gushed in both directions, comprising official correspondence, manual status reports, automatic logs, personal messages, and much more. The transfer took mere seconds instead of the hours or days it would have taken to pass the information over a chronometric telegraph, even if the storm hadn’t impeded communications.
The data burst received by the DTI tower’s infostructure first passed through several layers of nonsentient scrutiny designed to identify and isolate malicious software. None were found. After that, more layers of automatic data management sorted, forwarded, and stored the various files as needed. Many were utterly routine—collated by automatic reporting systems that few humans even knew about—and ended up in the department’s archives, never to be opened again.
Except, sometimes they were opened. And not for official reasons.
One program, taking up barely any processing power and listed only as an “archive optimization executable,” inspected the newly stored files. Most were passed over as unimportant, possessing none of the markers it was designed to check for. However, one file—a seemingly innocuous update on the Providence Station’s construction—did possess the correct markers.
The program copied the file to a hidden partition and began to decrypt the update’s secret contents. But first it had to find the actual message. The bits of data would be spread out, seemingly at random, but could be identified by looking for a variety of subtle mismatches, such as minuscule inconsistencies in file metadata or alterations to the various graphs and pictures. Even changing the hue of a single pixel could be interpreted as a one or a zero for the purposes of reconstructing the core message.
The program crunched through the data and produced a set of instructions, as it had millions of times before. The data was then re-encrypted and placed back in the hidden partition where a second program—this one called a “communication heartbeat monitor”—connected with the tower’s tertiary communications infostructure and inserted a new text string into the outgoing message queue.
The message then bounced back and forth through several Admin department towers until finally reaching the Yanluo Blight residential blocks, where it was received by an individual named Leonidas-Proxy.
* * *
Hammerhead-Seven dropped gently onto the landing pad atop Block G7, which sat within an expansive grid of identical, cylindrical towers. Isaac and Susan crossed to the passenger and service elevators while a chill wind blew across the roof. Prime Tower pierced the skyline to the north, the only building visible from the administrative campus at this distance.
“It could really use a big, flaming eyeball at the top,” Cephalie remarked from Isaac’s shoulder, the LENS floating after them.
“What are you talking about?” Isaac asked. “SysPol uses eyes in its insignia, not the Admin.”
“Seriously?” Cephalie made a face at him. “Haven’t you ever read The Lord of the Rings?”
“No.”
“It’s a classic.”
“That’s probably why I never read it. What’s this about a big eyeball?”
“Just trying to make a joke. Apparently, my efforts fell on deaf ears.”
“Please don’t get us into trouble.” Isaac turned to Susan. “You have any idea what she’s talking about?”
“I believe she’s comparing the Admin to Sauron’s reign over the land of Mordor.”
“I have no idea what you just said.”
“She’s making fun of us. Also, you should definitely check out The Lord of the Rings. The writing style may lose a bit in the translation to Modern English, but the world-building is top-notch.”
“Really?” Isaac was surprised by Susan’s enthusiasm in the subject. He smiled at her as they continued on. “Maybe I will.”
“I wonder if the Admin version is any different,” Cephalie said. “Tolkien’s work on the trilogy straddled the 1940 timeline split. Maybe I should pick up a copy.”
“Not what we’re here for,” Isaac said.
They took one of the elevators down through nearly the entire height of the building, past over three hundred above-ground levels before stopping at subbasement level twenty-eight. The doors parted to reveal a picturesque parkland with a central lake surrounded by five stories of commercial and residential addresses. The sun glowed in the virtual sky, and abstract signs and advertisements hovered beside many of the walkways and balconies. The translucent signage beside the elevators welcomed them to the QUIET BELOW.
“Seems nice enough,” Susan commented.
Isaac raised a palm and summoned the address.
“This way.” He led them left in a quarter arc along the third level. Their uniforms and the LENS drew curious glances from the residents, but nothing more. They stopped in front of a pair of opaque doors decorated on both sides with virtual representations of fluted columns. Isaac skimmed over the abstract cloth banner:
SPARTANS SIGN UP HERE!
JOIN THE FIGHT FOR AI FREEDOM!
THE RIGHTEOUS FEW AG—
That last part fuzzed into chunky pixels, replaced with what could only be vandalism. The new message read: YOU IDIOTS SUCK VIRTUAL WANG!
Mercifully, the vandals had failed to include any visual references.
“So tasteful,” Isaac grunted more than said, then pressed his hand against the door interface and walked in.
The interior was about what he’d expected, with a plethora of promotional material covering walls decorated in a faux Greco-Roman style. Red velvet ropes stretched between stanchions stylized as fluted columns that formed a winding path to a wide, marbled counter. The line could easily queue over fifty people, which struck Isaac as rather ambitious for the organization, since it was also empty. The counter was likewise unattended.
“Hello?” Isaac called out. “Mister Detmeier?”
He glanced to Susan.
“We do have an appointment.” She pointed toward an open arch at the back. “Want me to go find him?”
“Let’s not be hasty.”
They bypassed the line by approaching the counter via the exit path. Isaac’s boots clicked on the faux marble floor as he stepped up to the counter and tapped the buzzer.
“Mister Detmeier?” he repeated.
A young man peeked his head out from behind the archway. If he was trying to be inconspicuous, he utterly failed because he sported the wildest, frizziest afro Isaac had ever seen. The mass of unruly hair extended beyond his shoulders, revealing his presence long before he made eye contact.
Those eyes didn’t strike Isaac as fearful. Cautious, maybe. Even a bit uneasy, but not afraid.
“Hold on. Give me a moment.”
The afro darted back out of sight, followed by a series of soft sounds Isaac found difficult to identify. When the young man stepped into view, he’d restrained his hair with a tight band near the nape of his neck. He wore a cream-hued business suit that accentuated his dark skin and eyes.
The man stepped up to the desk and dipped his head toward them.
“Jonathan Detmeier, at your service. Sorry about that. I would have met you at the door, but you caught me at a bad time.”
“That’s perfectly fine, Mister Detmeier. I’m Investigator Cho, and this is my deputy, Agent Cantrell. We’re here to talk to you about the recent deaths within your organization.”
“Yes. About those.” Detmeier’s expression grew dark, and he gave the archway a quick wave. “Come on in. There’s an employee lounge in the back.”
He led them to a small, cozy room with a trio of deep, soft sofas. Detmeier sank into one, and Isaac and Susan sat down across from him.
“I’m still reeling from the news myself,” Detmeier said. “I don’t know what’s going to become of us after this.”
“Are you the only Spartan here right now?”
“Yeah. Just me, myself, and I. There’s a lot of concern in our ranks that large groups of Spartans might be targeted next, so I gave the local team the whole week off and encouraged all the other chapters to do the same. And really, who can blame them for fearing the worst? A lot of our people are scared. Hell, I’m scared. Jets don’t smash themselves into the ground on their own.”
“Why did you decide to come into work, then?”
“Someone has to put the pieces back together.” Detmeier sighed. “And I guess that person is going to be me. The cause is too important to let it all fall apart.”
“Have you been contacted about the incident?”
“You two are the first. Had me wondering if we were a low priority, what with everything else in the news. Strange as this might sound given our group’s history, but it’s actually a relief to see the DTI taking an interest in our case.”
“Why is that?”
“Well . . . ” Detmeier glanced around the room, suddenly less at ease.
“We’re the only ones here, Mister Detmeier.”
“I know. Just checking.”
Gurgle-blort.
Isaac furrowed his brow at the sudden, strange noise. It seemed to have come from the man’s stomach.
“The thing is,” Detmeier continued in a low voice, “I only know pieces of the story. I wasn’t high up enough to hear all of it.”
“I understand. Please share whatever you—”
Grrrrr.
“Whatever you can,” Isaac finished with a slight frown.
“I’ll do my best.” Detmeier rubbed his stomach. “The thing is, someone approached us. I don’t know who they were or what they wanted. All I do know is our management got really worked up right after we were contacted.”
“‘Worked up’ in what way?”
“I can only speak for the senior managers in Outreach, but I can tell you every one of them was visibly excited about something, but also nervous at the same time. A lot of high-level, confidential talks followed soon after.”
“Do you know what those talks were about?”
“Only in the vaguest terms. Something about an . . . Institute, I think?”
“The Phoenix Institute?” Isaac asked.
“Could be. They were all trying to figure out what to do about the . . . offer we’d received, or whatever it was. But it must have been big, though. Real big. I think some of them were even frightened by the—”
Blort-blort-gurgle.
Detmeier clenched his stomach with both hands and bent forward.
“Are you all right?” Isaac asked.
“Sorry.” Detmeier flashed a brave, somewhat pained smile. “My PIBS is acting up.”
“Your what?”
“Printer-induced irritable bowel syndrome,” Susan explained. “His stomach can’t tolerate printed food.”
“Yeah, and it gets worse when I’m”—Guuuurgle—“nervous! Oh no!”
Detmeier lurched to his feet, and hunch-walked through a doorway that might have led to the employee restrooms. What followed involved a lot of groans, gasps, and heaves interspersed with occasional fluidic noises.
Isaac turned to Susan with a raised eyebrow.
“I guess we just wait for him to finish?” she said.
“I guess so.” Isaac sank deeper into the sofa.
He glanced around the room as they waited. Virtual pictures and slogans covered most of the walls, though one picture stood out to him. It featured a young, attractive woman with short black hair shot with purple streaks. She smiled at the viewer, her striking green eyes almost laughing. Brightly colored residue dripped down the picture.
“What’s that on her face?” Isaac asked in security chat, pointing at the photo.
“I think it’s food.” Susan gestured at the picture with a finger gun, and a tomato splatted against the woman’s forehead, complete with a juicy sound effect. She rapid-fired her finger gun, and a variety of fruits and vegetables clobbered the woman’s face. “I get the feeling they don’t like her.”
“That’s Sophia Uzuki,” Cephalie said through voice only.
“I suppose it’s only natural the Spartans wouldn’t be big fans of the Farm.” Isaac glanced toward the restrooms, where the pained moans grew less frequent. “You okay in there?” he shouted.
“Not really!” Detmeier shouted back. “Almost done!”
He emerged several minutes later.
“I’m really sorry about that!”
“You mentioned your superiors seemed frightened,” Isaac said, eager to return to business. “How so?”
“I can’t be sure, but I think they weren’t comfortable with where the talks were headed.”
“Were they being asked to do something illegal?”
“Maybe.” Detmeier paused with a distant expression, then shook his head. “I really don’t know.”
“Why were so many members of your leadership on one flight?”
“They were making the rounds, using our private liner to visit other offices.” He gestured around them. “We run the organization from here, but we also have chapters all over the world.”
“Were their travel plans public knowledge?”
“Not really, but they weren’t being kept secret, either.”
“Do you have access to your management’s recent correspondence?”
“Sort of.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I can give you access to our local systems, no problem. But given how much travel our managers put in, most would have all their important files stored on their PINs.”
“And those were lost in the crash,” Susan added.
Detmeier nodded sadly.
“I’d like access to your local archives, just the same,” Isaac said.
“Of course. I’ll set up an account for you once we’re done here.”
“Have the Spartans had any dealings with the Farm, either recently or in the past?”
“Pfft!” Detmeier jerked his head in disgust. “Seriously?”
“Should I take that as a no?”
“Abolishing the Farm is a core part of our platform! There’s no way any of us would be caught dead dealing with those monsters!” He pointed toward Uzuki’s picture and a new splat appeared. “Take her for example. Did you know she administers pain simulations to underperforming AIs?”
Isaac glanced to Susan, who shook her head.
“And that’s not the worst of it!” Detmeier continued. “We have it on good authority she sets up special abstractions where she hunts AIs for sport! Can you believe that?”
“Do you have evidence of these activities? Evidence that would stand up to scrutiny in a court of law?”
“Well . . . ” Detmeier’s shoulders sagged, the righteous fire draining out of him. “No, not really.”
“What evidence do you have, then?”
“They’re more like rumors than evidence, I’d guess you’d say.”
“Are you aware the Farm suffered a severe data breach recently?”
Detmeier blinked. “They did?”
“That’s correct.”
“Serves them right!”
“Were any members of the Spartans involved in the data breach?”
“No way!” Detmeier shook his head. “I know we’re not exactly a mainstream group here, but we do make an effort to stay on the right side of the law. We protest. We petition. We rally. But we do not break the law. That’s how we’ve operated from the very beginning.”
* * *
Jonathan Detmeier saw the two Peacekeepers off then returned to the employee lounge. He sank into one of the sofas and stared at the floor between his knees. Only then did his hands start to shake. His stomach began to growl and gurgle again, and he sprinted to the restroom where he spent the next few minutes dry heaving into a toilet.
It took him almost half an hour to work up the courage to place his next call. He didn’t use a standard comm window, but instead ran a special program stored on his PIN. The program established a voice-only connection to a reclusive Spartan known as Leonidas-Proxy.
“Yes, Jonathan?”
“They’re gone.”
“How did the interview go?”
“I name-dropped the Institute, just like you asked.”
“Good work. Hopefully this will help nudge their investigation in the right direction without us being too obvious.”
“It’s true, then?” Detmeier asked. “The people behind the recent attacks also took out our leadership?”
“I can’t say for certain,” Leonidas-Proxy said. “But one of my associates believes this to be the case, and I trust both his judgment and the quality of his information.”
“Then they could hit us again, couldn’t they?” Detmeier massaged his aching stomach. “They could come after me!”
“I doubt it.”
“Why you say that?”
“If the Institute wanted to kill you, you would already be dead.”
Detmeier grimaced, and his stomach grumbled.
“Since you’re alive,” Leonidas-Proxy continued, “it’s reasonable to assume you were not a target. Your relative unimportance seems to have worked in your favor.”
“That doesn’t make me feel much better.”
“Be thankful you can feel anything at all. Others are not so lucky.”
“I guess you have a point there,” Detmeier conceded. “So, what now? Where do we take things from here?”
Leonidas-Proxy paused for an unusual length of time. “Now I need your help.”
“With what?”
“Preparations. My associates and I will engage in our own efforts, but we’ll need at least one other Spartan to support us. I’d normally ask someone more senior than you to do this for me, but . . . ”
“They’re all dead.”
“Just so. Can I count on you?”
“Always,” Detmeier answered, meaning it with all his heart and soul.
He’d learned about Leonidas-Proxy over a year ago, after his last promotion. In some ways, Leonidas-Proxy was the real leader behind the Spartans, and those members killed in the crash had been little more than figureheads.
Or perhaps decoys?
Regardless of what the past arrangement might have been, Leonidas-Proxy was the closest thing Detmeier had to a boss in the here and now. While he’d never met the man in person, he knew the difference between someone who played at activism and a true believer in the cause, and Leonidas-Proxy was most certainly the latter.
“You may not feel that way,” Leonidas-Proxy warned, “after you understand what I am asking of you.”
“Why’s that?”
“See for yourself.”
A small file transferred through the secure connection, which Detmeier opened to reveal a list of instructions. He skimmed over them, then stopped. He read the passages with greater care, his heart beginning to race.
“But this is . . . ”
“Illegal,” Leonidas-Proxy finished for him. “Yes, I know.”
“Not just illegal. This could get me killed!”
“I admit there’s some degree of risk.”
“Some!”
“I wouldn’t ask this of you or anyone else under normal conditions, and it’s entirely possible you won’t have to act upon these plans. But recent events have been anything but normal, and we must be prepared for the worst. Are you willing to help us?”
“I . . . I don’t know,” Detmeier stammered, the shock of the task still fresh in his mind.
“I’ll need an answer soon.”
“What if I say no?”
“Then I’ll ask other Spartans until I find someone who says yes, though I expect that task to be difficult, if not impossible.”
“Why me?”
“Because you’re the only living member who knows of my relationship with the Spartans.”
Detmeier placed his face in his hands. “In other words, I’m all you’ve got.”
“Something like that. Again, I require an answer soon. If I need to make alternative arrangements, I should start as early as possible.”
Detmeier looked over the instructions once more. He read them carefully, line by line, all the way through, and he found his mood shifting ever so slightly. Yes, this was illegal, and yes, he might die in the attempt. But wasn’t this exactly what he’d secretly yearned for all these years in the Spartans? Hadn’t he always fantasized about furthering the cause through actions instead of words? Of striking a true, tangible blow for AI freedom?
In a way, it was a dream come true.
But that dream wasn’t being offered for free.
“Jonathan?”
Detmeier spoke his next words in a clear, confident voice.
“I’m in.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“You do realize—”
“I said I’m in,” he snapped, perhaps a bit too forcefully.
“Then I won’t inquire further. Here are the other resources you will need.”
More files transferred over the encrypted connection, consisting of a PIN update and a few printer patterns.
“I suggest you begin your preparations at once,” Leonidas-Proxy said. “I’ll contact you with instructions to either take action or stand down and destroy the evidence.”
“I’ll start right away.”
* * *
Detmeier headed into the back of the facility and opened a large, locked room for both miscellaneous storage and large-scale printing. Debris from countless protests and campaigns cluttered rows of metal shelves, while two industrial printers squatted along the far wall like lumpy cubes, one dull gray and the other checkered black and white.
The gray printer was a Helix Standard, the more expensive of the pair with fabrication capabilities on par with many industrial-grade printers. Its diminutive neighbor was a SpeedMaster ZTR 5000. The only impressive thing about it was the name.
He pulled out the tool kit stored between the two printers, split it open on the floor, and knelt beside it. He opened the instructions from Leonidas-Proxy and shifted the window so it wouldn’t obstruct his view of the printers. He then proceeded to unscrew and remove panels from both machines and began to pull out pieces of their guts, per the diagrams attached to his instructions.
Detmeier wasn’t entirely sure what he was doing, but he could make an educated guess. The Helix Standard, while much more flexible, came with a number of built-in hardware restrictions to prevent the reproduction of illegal patterns. The SpeedMaster, on the other hand, came with no such restrictions because it simply wasn’t a capable enough model to warrant them.
Swap the right components, he thought, and I can use the SpeedMaster’s brain to control the Helix’s body.
It took him two hours to work through all the diagrams, after which the Helix’s control center was a mess of mismatched components on the floor, connected to the machine by several extension cables.
Detmeier rose to his feet and brushed off his knees.
“I’ve done it now,” he muttered, fully aware that even this much constituted a major crime.
But he wasn’t done yet. Not by a long shot. He loaded the first pattern file into the Helix, was pleased to see the machine accept the order, then hit the execute button on the virtual console, which also worked despite a glitchy menu.
The Helix chugged and whirred with the sounds of flowing base materials and actuating servos. Before long, it deposited the result into a side hopper.
Detmeier rounded the machine and retrieved the contents.
“I’ve really done it now,” he said, staring at the Peacekeeper uniform in his hands.
It felt heavier than it looked for some reason.